The Bugs Bunny/Road-Runner Movie

Today, Bugs Bunny turns 80 years old. I miss out on a lot of anniversaries for characters, shows and movies that I love, but once I heard that Bugs Bunny was going to turn 80 this year, I started planning what I was going to do for today. I decided to watch an old trilogy of movies starring the wascally wabbit that came out in the late '70s and early '80s. Earlier this morning, I watched the Merrie Melodies short that Bugs Bunny debuted in: A Wild Hare. I even got a small carrot cake over the weekend! I prepared for this. I am just happy that got to celebrate the 80th birthday of one my favorite characters in any form of media as properly as I could.

Before talking about the films, I want to talk about why Bugs Bunny is such a great character and why he is so important to me. I first started watching Looney Tunes when I was around 12. Before that, the only experience I had with the franchise was with Baby Looney Tunes... when I first saw a Bugs Bunny short, I instantly fell in love with his character. He made me laugh and I found a character that I could easily root for. He also helped me get away from watching too many crime TV shows that started to mess with my mind. I got a little paranoid from watching all of those crime shows and when I started watching some old shows, it took my mind off of those shows and put me in a happy place. Looney Tunes was the show I watched the most and Bugs Bunny was my hero in a way. He stood up to bullies and he helped me get my mind off of the dangers of the world. For a long time however, I stopped watching the series all together and only looked back after I grew the urge to watch the show again around Christmas time. Being a little older, I fell in love with the show again and Bugs stayed as my favorite character. I also grew an appreciation for the hard work that went into these cartoons with the animation and sound. Regardless of how old I am, Bugs Bunny never fails to make me smile, whether I am watching a classic short or some new Looney Tunes content.

Bugs is an awesome character for many reasons. First of all, he is an adorable badass. He has multiple talents such as being wonderful with music and singing, being a fast runner, being great at sports, delivering dramatic performances and dressing in drag to fool his victims of course. His best trait however is that he is a hilarious and playful prankster who usually only goes after those who pick on him or others. When someone tries mess with him, he strikes back 10 times harder, no matter who he goes up against. If is particularly satisfying and exciting to watch Bugs take down an opponent who is a flat out jerk to him or others for no reason. No matter how scary the opponent looks, Bugs will stand up to them. Some examples of this include when he slapped a scary bull across the face for steaming up his tail without flinching, taking on an entire team of baseball players by himself and going up against a boxing champion. He will go against any opponent that messes with him or others and make a fool out of them in a hilarious fashion.

That is not all to Bugs' character. He is very cool and calm and he has an excellent sense of humor. He never fails to be amusing, even in some of his weaker shorts. He is brutal with his opponents, but he is also a pretty nice guy otherwise. He will help out others who may need it and he will only get aggressive if a jerk tries to start something with him. However, when things do not go his way, he loses his cool quickly. He becomes an angry sore loser. He cannot stand to be the butt of the joke and when he gets angry, he gets scary! This is why I think Bugs is such a fantastic character. He has a colorful and deep personality for a character who used to only appear in shorts. There is a lot to his personality compared to other characters at the time. You even get to see Bugs develop from a pesky troublemaker from his early shorts to becoming a laid-back, almost friendly enemy in the late '50s and early '60s. By the '80s, a couple Looney Tunes specials were produced with Mel Blanc reprising his role as the characters. Bugs almost feels much wiser and more reflective on his life in these specials. I might be going a bit too far into this, but that is my interpretation of Bugs' development over the classic years. It gives his shorts a lot of variety to them and that variety makes it to where most Bugs Bunny shorts feel pretty different from one another. It especially comes into play because Bugs has a different strategy for each opponent he goes against. This rabbit has range! Bugs is such a great character and he always been my favorite classic cartoon character. As the TV Tropes page for Looney Tunes said on their entry, Bugs Bunny is a walking fountain of awesome.

Anyways, let's talk about these three films. They are all pretty much compilations of the classic shorts that have new content in them that helps create a story. The shorts link to each other in some way or they might be a part of the event that Bugs is explaining about. I feel like these films were made to have a way where people could have a way to see some of these classic shorts in theaters or even to have an easier way to own some of the more well known shorts on home video. Regardless, I enjoyed all three of them and they all brought interesting narratives and ways to link the shorts to the plot of each film. The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie for example has three acts. Each act is made up of a collection of Looney Tunes shorts by Friz Freleng that connect with each other to create a new narrative such as Bugs being a detective, Sam being the devil's servant and the characters participating in an award ceremony. 1001 Rabbit Tales has Bugs and Daffy attempting to sell books around the country. Bugs ends up at Yosemite Sam's palace in the Arabian dessert. There, he is forced to read numerous stories to his bratty son. These stories are Looney Tunes shorts of course. As for this film, The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Movie, it is simply Bugs reflecting on his career with his foes and talking about his experiences. He even reflects back on his multiple fathers (cartoon directors). The shorts shown in this film are by Chuck Jones. The film ends with a long Roadrunner chase sequence.

The movies may not be the ideal way to watch some of these shorts, but they are great fun. The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Movie is probably the best movie in this trilogy because it has the best shorts of the franchise like Rabbit Fire, What's Up Opera, Long-Haired Hare, Bully for Bugs, Duck Amuck and many more. One of my favorites is Long-Haired Hare. There is no short where I root for Bugs to destroy his opponent harder than the opera singer in this short. This man broke Bugs' instruments and brutal beat Bugs out of spite instead of asking him to stop playing. The ending was really satisfying. Some of these shorts are shortened for time reasons, but they still work well with the film's narrative.

What I love the most about these shorts is the precision of the animation matching the music. It brings so much energy to these shorts that they are never dull for even a minute. The gags are gut-busting. Looney Tunes never fails to make me laugh, even if the short is not one of the stronger ones. The comedic timing is perfect, the dialogue is instantly quotable and the fourth wall is beautifully destroyed. The characters are also very memorable with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Sylvester Cat and other characters being unforgettable. The voice acting is phenomenal. Mel Blanc is known as the man with a thousand voices and by watching these shorts, it would be hard to tell that he does most of the characters. He will always be the definitive Bugs Bunny no matter what. His dedication to these characters is what really warms my heart. Even in his later years, he had a wise tone to his voice that made Bugs feel more mature than he was in his younger years. This man is an absolute legend. These shorts are still some of my favorite things to watch and they never get old for even a second. They are pretty timeless. These movies do a surprisingly great job at implementing the shorts to the narrative to the films and make changes only when they need to. Also, I really liked seeing the characters watch their own shorts in the awards show. I could watch them react to their own shorts for hours.

Looney Tunes will always be one of my favorite franchises of all time. Bugs Bunny is my favorite character in the series and he always will be. This trilogy of films do a great job bringing some of Bugs' best moments in a feature length film. However, I would not highly recommend them that much because there are easier ways to accessing many of the shorts that these films show, especially in The Bugs Bunny Roadrunner Movie. Still, I had a great time watching this trilogy and I am happy I got to properly celebrate my one favorite cartoon characters ever.